China's
massive rural population made the small groups of workers
seem negligible. Her cities were small, and few factories
existed in them. Industrialization for China did not
begun until World War I during which trade routes were
cut off and production shifted from civil to military.
Goods became scarce causing demand to soar, making it
profitable to start factories. The overwhelming majority
of China's population were composed of peasant farmers.
The lack of industrialization created a chain reaction
which led to further deviations.

The
difference in size of the proletariate caused another
deviation from Marxism. The main revolt did not come from
the workers of industrial cities as Marx had envisioned.
Instead, it came from the peasant farmers from the rural
countryside. Communists had always believed that their
revolution would have to be spearheaded by oppressed
factory workers in the cities, but Mao showed that the
revolutionary base could be established in a region far
from the cities and towns. From these peasants Mao
recruited members for the C.C.P. and the Chinese Red
Army. The Communists originally hoped to create a massive
revolt in all the cities to topple capitalism, but each
riot was quickly put down by the Nationalist forces.
There were not enough urban workers to effectively gain
control of the cities.

In
China, virtually all the revolts incited by the Chinese
Communist Party were quickly ended. The few successful
revolts were aided by the Guomindang which later sided
against the Communists. The arrests and executions of
Communist leaders were usually enough to stabilize the
situation. One example is known as the Nanjing Road
incident. When two thousand students distributed leaflets
in the International Settlement, hundreds were arrested,
others were brutally assaulted. Thirty thousand
surrounded the police station the next day. The British
police killed five, and injured fifty, leading to the
formation of The Workers' General Union. Within half a
month, one hundred and fifty thousand were on strike in
Shanghai. Even a strike of this magnitude failed. The
main reason for the failure was the workers' dependency
upon the same market they struck against. This is why the
peasants had much more success. Unions did poorly in
winning their demands in China. This does not happen in a
Marxist revolution. The proletariat would be so strong
that they could not be defeated.